Project Prometheus nears $10B raise at $38B valuation
What's the deal? Project PrometheusDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, the physical AI lab co-founded by Jeff BezosDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and scientist Vik BajajDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, is close to finalising a $10B funding round at a $38B valuation. JPMorganDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and BlackRock are among the investors. The round has not yet closed.
Once completed, total funding will exceed $16B, including the $6.2B raised at launch in November 2025. That makes Prometheus one of the fastest-capitalised startups in history — five months old, no products, no revenue, and already valued higher than most public software companies.
Why now? Prometheus is building what the industry calls "physical AI" — systems trained on real-world experimental data, robotics interactions, and engineering workflows rather than just text. Target sectors include aerospace, automotive, advanced manufacturing, drug discovery, and logistics automation.
The company has grown to over 120 employees, hiring researchers from OpenAI, xAIDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Meta, and DeepMindDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. It also acquired agentic AI startup General AgentsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. Bajaj, a former Google XDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → scientist and co-founder of Foresite LabsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, brings deep expertise in physical sciences and AI.
This marks the first time Bezos has held an operational role since leaving AmazonDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → in 2021 — a signal he views physical AI as the defining technology challenge of the next decade.
What could go wrong? The valuation is extraordinary for a pre-revenue company. Physical AI systems require specialised data on material behaviour, engineering tolerances, and manufacturing processes — data that is proprietary, scarce, and expensive to collect. Whether Prometheus can build defensible datasets fast enough to justify a $38B price tag is unproven.
Bezos is also reportedly seeking up to $100B for a separate "manufacturing transformation vehicle" to acquire industrial businesses and feed their operational data back into Prometheus's models. That ambition carries execution risk on a scale few companies have attempted.
The signal: The deal comes days after AmazonDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → committed up to $25B in new investment to AnthropicDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. The parallel underscores a structural shift: the AI investment frontier is moving from language models to physical-world applications. BlackRock and JPMorganDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → backing a five-month-old lab at $38B signals that institutional capital now views physical AI as investable at scale, not just a research curiosity.
Sources:
Financial Times
Reuters
Bloomberg
Business Insider
The Next Web
Capacity
Tech Funding News
Tech in Asia
Image credit:
Daniel Oberhaus
J.V.
